A Young Light at Casa Urrutia

Luz Urrutia Fernández (1903-1945), the second daughter and fifth child of the Urrutias, was named for her mother, Luz Fernández.

Born in Mexico City, she was 11 years old when the family immigrated from Mexico in the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution. She, her four older teenage siblings, and a younger sister, Alicia, were transported with Dr. Urrutia and his wife aboard a military vessel from Veracruz to Galveston. Urrutia, having served briefly in the Mexican government as Minister of the Interior, had been granted diplomatic status by the United States.

At the time of their exit from Mexico, another seven younger children stayed behind with their maternal grandparents. The youngest child passed away during that time, but the remaining six eventually traveled to San Antonio when the family settled.

Seven years after their arrival, Luz, the mother, passed away. With her older sister Refugio already involved in the family’s pharmacy business, it fell to the 18-year-old Luz to take up the slack of managing the busy household, which included her six teenage siblings and a small staff. How Luz felt about her position in the family is unknown, but she excelled as the family manager, and her father held her in high regard, calling her “a true angel” and a “saint.” She never married.

There are not many pictures of Luz, but from the number of photographs of other siblings and their surroundings, it can be assumed that one of Luz’s talents was documenting the family in photographs. She was known as the family archivist, and in one photograph I see her standing on a hill at Miraflores with her brownie camera in hand. She also kept all the family papers in order, collected family-related articles and letters, and oversaw the finances of the pharmacy.

When the doctor remarried in 1923 to Catalina Tazzer, the two young women, both born in the same year, must have become friends, running the household together. Luz continued her role of chronicling the family and surely helped to raise Catalina’s three young children (her half-siblings) in their early childhood. In 1928, when Urrutia’s marriage dissolved, Catalina, pregnant with a fourth child, returned to Mexico with her children, leaving Luz once again as the sole manager of the household. She was 24 years old.

As if that wasn’t enough, Luz struggled with her health. In 1945, at the age of 41, Luz passed away from tuberculosis and related complications. At the time of her death she was working on a compendium of her archive, as a gift to her father for his 50 years of service in the medical profession. The project was completed by her sister Refugio. At the time, Luz wrote about her father as being “deeply believing and deeply balanced.” She appreciated in him the model that “he has not stopped working a single day, has never been absent from his office, and is seen daily in the operating room with the tranquility of yesterday and the serenity of always.” Her own work reflected that very same level of energy and dedication, but was directed toward the family and toward documenting Urrutia’s career.

Historical photo from the Urrutia collection, all rights reserved.

Posted on September 27, 2020.